[Egyptian] On "A system of control characters for Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic text" (2016-07-23)

[Bob Richmond]

Hi Mark-Jan

 

We've been talking about plain text on and off for over 18 months so I was
interested to read your L2/16-177 "new system" earlier this month and your
latest update yesterday
(https://mjn.host.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/tmp/unicode2.pdf). Good to see your
number of control characters now reduced, more consideration has been given
to OpenType and some discussion in Cambridge has been factored in. I
understand what you are trying to do and there are points I'd like to
discuss when we have time. There are items you note that indeed need to be
progressed and agreed (EMPTY, STACK CARTOUCHE .)

 

However I am disappointed you have not taken on board the fundamental
failing with the scheme you've been developing that makes it unsuitable for
Unicode plain text consideration, however useful it may be for other
purposes. I thought this was clear at Cambridge but apparently not.

 

Unicode plain text hieroglyphic is exposed to a huge audience and the very
first consideration is don't make simple things complicated. Use of
BEGIN/END for every group breaks that basic rule. Your scheme is
unnecessarily complicated so fails at the outset. It's a continuing
distraction for the less technically minded in this group to continue to
hold it up as a viable alternative to the current UTC recommendation. It is
not.

 

MdC X1:R1 in your scheme uses 3 control characters. Quite honestly I find it
hard to understand why anyone thinks this is possibly a good idea. If anyone
reading this does support 3 over 1 please let me know your reasoning I'm
actually quite curious why I've had to spend time on this.

 

What you've tried to do is build a theoretical model which describes cluster
layout given a set of constraints and that's all good as an academic
exercise. I'd  be interested to see it tested against texts and data. All
features of could be added in some way to the three control system as HLP or
extra controls. 

 

So, there's no need to throw your work away. Some parts apply to plain text
implementation e.g. your description on making an MdC-like font. Plenty more
you could re-purpose should you wish to continue to be involved in Unicode
developments.

 

What I suggest you do is consider how you might use elements of your scheme
in a simple higher level protocol on top of plain text as it is at present
(I'll be circulating my considered view on adding to the 3 control set on
Tuesday). Brackets in an HLP could be ok for rare cases. May be useful for
TLA and Ramses. 

 

Meanwhile if you have any ideas on how you would like to see e.g. 4 corners
added to the existing proposal I'd be pleased to hear from your or anyone
else on the topic.

 

Regards,

Bob

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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